Support Us

16 Examples of Japanese Lovely-ness

Hi there, we’re Kaboomi Studio, but you can call us Kaboomi. We’re a boy & girl team in Tokyo, sharing Japanese design with the world and the worlds design with the Japanese. We share one bold image per day (monday-friday) on Facebook and Twitter, accompanied by a short description in English and Japanese. We specialise in “Lovely Stuff”. On occasion, it would be nice to go into a little more detail and share a few more images and links about specific products, but we don’t really think that suits our current social media channels, which is why we thought writing for DMIJ might be a good idea. So for now, we just wanted to say hi, and share a collection of Japanese-related works we thought you might enjoy:

The Great Wave of the Cookie Monster

UFO Wind Bell

Nousaku, based in Takaoka city, Toyama prefecture, use their 400 year old metal fabrication technique to produce this UFO wind bell (風鈴 “fuurin” in Japanese.)

Onigiri Lunch Bag

Minne is an online platform for people to buy and sell hand made goods (like a Japanese version of Etsy). This Onigiri (rice ball) lunch bag is designed and produced by Natote, and will look super pretty in the hands of a little human being.

Skateboarder Cup

Manufacturer of traditional Japanese ceramics Choemon, produced this modern, humorous range of cups that include some old geezer on the drums, popping an ollie, sporting a hyottoko mask, and boshing out some hard style (we assume) on a ghetto blaster. Undoubtably badass, the cups don’t come cheap at ¥6,300, but that does include a cool box.

Bow Rubber Band

Mizuhiki are the traditional paper decorations that are given away on Japanese occasions such as weddings, births and funerals. Designer Yu Asou incorporated Mizuhiki into this rubber band design which was awarded a Kokuyo Design Award in 2013. A delightful little thing to wrap a present or put on your wrist!

Fuji-san Socks

It’s highly unlikely the real mount.fuji would fit on a childs feet, plus there’s only one anyway. These socks, produced by Nakagawa Shouten, a craft house established in Nara nearly 300 years ago, are a great substitute, and will have all the wannabe mums saying “kawaii” until that’s all you can hear when you’re trying to get to sleep.

Lettuce Umbrella

“Vegetabrella” is an original design produced by Tokyo Noble, an specialist umbrella-shop in Ueno, Tokyo.

Skateboard Wappen

Those animals on your clothes are a bit bored. Add a bit of decoration to cheer them up with these iron-on skateboard patches, easy peezy lemon squeezy! Designed by Makoto Oozu for The Mint House, Tokyo.

The Petal to the Metal

Isn’t it nice when such a standardised product, in this case nails, is tweaked to be a little more special. Flower nails, designed by Masaharu Ono.

Plate-Plate

Make your dishes 1000 x cuter with this playful tableware by Duncan Shotton for EntreX Inc. (Tokyo). They’re made in the city of Tajimi, Gifu prefecture, which has a long history in the ceramics industry. Watch the short film that documents the ceramics process in Tajimi, and features plate-plate:

Animal Ribbons

Everyone get’s a tad annoyed when the kids are more interested in the wrapping than the presents, but if they’re wrapped like this, we guess it’s understandable. Created by Ribbonesia, a small, close team of Japanese ribbon-artist dudes.

Suica x The Last Supper

This range of clear stickers produced by FOCUS are designed to be stuck over Japans popular “Suica” brand of IC-cards. The stickers transform the standard Suica penguin character into various situations and roles, including the last supper, zombies, godzilla, jedi, and more.

Plum Eraser

Spade, originally from Osaka, combine the appearance of a Japanese Plum (梅 “Ume”) with the function of a rubber ( “keshi”) to bring us “Umekeshi”. The concept is that when it’s placed at the centre of a piece of paper, it looks like “Hinomaru Bento” (日の丸弁当), which is a kind of pikey lunch box consisting of only rice and a salty plum.

Planters

Designed by Chiaki Murata for his Osaka-based brand Metaphys, ienami planters come in four different styles, and are supposed to be mixed and matched to create a small world on your desk. Bit harsh to expect those cows to walk up and down those stairs though…

Fuji-San Soy-Sauce

These simple ceramic dishes are reportedly designed by Sorarine (who are based Shizuoka, where Mount Fuji is located), although we can’t find anything on their site. Regardless, your probably now thinking about eating sushi.

Cat Paw-shake Vending Machine

The Japanese on this cardboard construction reads “1 handshake, 10 yen”. That’s a bargain considering the cat manning the shop is pokke (ポッケ), a 7-year old Scottishfold, that features everyday on his very own blog pokkeboy.

Goodness, all that writing and linking takes longer than you think ay!

Author Information

We’re a small team in Tokyo, sharing Japanese design with the world and the worlds design with the Japanese.
Whether you’re looking for inspiration for your own project, or just want something to make you smile every day, Kaboomi is for you!

About DMIJ

The Resource forDesign Made in Japan.

DMIJ is an attempt to map the design landscape in Japan with the help of designers, bloggers/writers or otherwise design interested individuals either living in Japan or abroad. Users have the option to submit their own design discoveries about Japan.